On quitting smoking: Development of two scales measuring the use of self-change strategies in current and former smokers (Scs-cs and scs-fs)
Section snippets
Qualitative survey
We used a systematic approach to scale development Jackson 1970, Streiner & Norman 1995. We began by conducting a mail survey of current and former smokers to collect qualitative data on self-change strategies. Participants were recruited among persons who had already participated in previous smoking-related surveys (Etter, Perneger, & Ronchi, 1997), and were either members of the University of Geneva (students and staff) or residents of Geneva, Switzerland. The questionnaire was mailed once to
Qualitative survey
The 120 participants in the qualitative survey were on average 34 years old, 68% were women, and 68% were current smokers. Participants wrote 710 interpretable statements on activities, thoughts, and events that are used or occur in the transitions between the various stages of change (Table 3). All statements were attributed to one of the “processes of change” identified by Prochaska, and to an additional category called “Events that cause change.” These statements formed the basis of the
Discussion
In this study, we identified eight distinct and interpretable self-change strategies that smokers and ex-smokers use to progress from the stage where they have no intention to quit smoking to the long-term maintenance of abstinence. Furthermore, we developed and validated two scales (SCS-CS and SCS-FS) measuring the frequency of use of these strategies in current and former smokers. The identification of these self-change strategies and the development of scales to measure them will be useful
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation to J.F. Etter (32-47122-96, 3233-054994.98 and 3200-055141.98), by the Swiss Cancer League, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, Health Authorities of the Cantons of Geneva and Jura, the Geneva Cancer League, and the Swiss Foundation for Health Promotion.
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